


Echoes

by Owlix



Series: Confined Spaces [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 21:05:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlix/pseuds/Owlix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes he still dreams of mining.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes

 

Sometimes he still dreamed of mining.

Megatron had altered his body years ago - first to a tank, ruthlessly eliminating the aspects of his original form that were designed for manual labor, and then later to a gun, a form more perfectly reflective of his philosophy and place, and much further removed from the alt-mode of his oldest, formative memories. Uncomfortable and unnatural, but that was only proper. The burden he carried should be uncomfortable. He carried it anyway, the violence, for the sake of all of them.  And finally a plane, distant and free of the dirt and of the past and of his increasingly oppressive burdens, which even he could only carry for so long.

But _once a miner, always a miner_ , his friends used to say, laughing and covered in dirt and drinking themselves blind in between shifts. That was the lie he’d fought to prove wrong. That was the lie he’d taken everything onto himself to drag into the light. But Megatron thought sometimes, half asleep and optics bleary, still feeling the layers of mine-shaft dust, sure of the rough, deep grate of it in his joints if he were to move… he thought sometimes that there was truth in that, too.

Because no matter what he’d done since, the mining was still there. Even when he’d been a gun, removed tank treads and replaced them with firing mechanisms - even when he’d been a jet, as far from what he’d been as he could ever be…

Even then, he dreamed of it.

He dreamed of the weight - overwhelming, reassuring, tons upon tons of rock over his head and under his treads. He dreamed of hours upon hours in his alt mode, dreamed of forgetting how to use his hands properly after so long hauling rock underground. Dreamed of the smell of dust, of the feel of it, grit in his joints that made each motion rough and painful. Dreamed of the echoes - each sound distorted, coming back to him in waves, a strange white-noise of meaningless sounds that blended into something better than silence.

He dreamed of the monotony - endless repetitive work, time echoing back like the sounds upon itself.

In his dreams, he hauled rock and metal and unrefined energon. He felt the low, constant blanket of pain that he always used to feel, back when he’d been repaired just enough to perform his function and not a bit beyond. He felt the tension of always being at the mercy of others, the threat of violence so pervasive that “fear” didn’t describe it any more - stolen moments of peace and echoes in between violence and abuse and sleep and temporary brilliant freedom he was too broke and tired to ever fully enjoy.

He dreamed of repeating essays in his own head, endlessly - memorizing them, forcing them into his hard drive deep enough that they would stay there when he surfaced, so that he could write them down and look at them later with a clearer head and in the sunlight. Dreamed of being sure that they mattered - of _needing_ to be sure. He dreamed of composing poetry to the rhythm of the echoes in the mine shafts.

He woke, sometimes to the light, which startled him. Sometimes to the dark, which startled him too - briefly afraid that he'd slipped into recharge during work, and that he'd be punished for it. Always expecting a mouthful of dust and dirt when he inhaled, and instead, getting air so clean it almost hurt.

He sat for a long time, staring up, still feeling the tingling presence of tire treads long since removed, still expecting grit between each moving part. The mine-shaft echoes lingered after those dreams. Sometimes for days. And he felt angry, sometimes, after. But more often he just felt old, and very foolish.


End file.
